Shattered
by opensecret
Summary: "I am Azula. I am everything. I am nothing." In which Zuko is the prodigy, and Azula is the disgrace. AU One-Shot


_If you could only see the beast you've made of me_ - Florence and the Machine, Howl

* * *

She hates him.

Zuko is everything she wants to be. The blue fire that he calls so easily to his fingertips swirls around and is not only an extension but a very part of him, the ease in which he moves is like a dance, the calm obedience and very easy way in which he interacts with Father -

He is everything.

She'll watch him, watch him excel, watch him impress _her_ father. Azula watches and bows her head in shame and waits and waits and waits until that day that she'll be better, that she'll impress Father and earn that rare smile from him. But he always says the same things about her – disgrace, failure, get out and don't come back until you've proven yourself to me, get out and don't come back until you've done something useful, get out of my sight –

Mother tries to shower her with love, tries to favor her, but Azula won't have it. She brushes aside her mother's love because it is her father's that she so craves, needs. Her father is the powerful one, the important one, and she just wants to be noticed by him, just wants him to look at her like he looks at Zuko. Her mother is just as worthless as she. She is just there to produce heirs, to look nice on her father's arm. So why should Azula desire the love of her mother? So she waits. Waits for Daddy to love her.

He never does.

I am Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation.

I am a failure.

I am everything.

**...**

Azula gives Zuko his scar.

He'd been offering to teach her how to create lightning, since he had learned and she had not. Azula had not been strong enough, not trusted enough with such a difficult skill. Zuko had gone off at the age of fourteen, Azula being twelve, and had learned that technique that she just _knew_ was meant for her.

So when she fails, she gets angry. She screams at Zuko and hates him and just wants him to leave her alone – why won't he just leave her alone? And he's the noble one, Azula do it like this not like that let it flow smoothly you're too jerky just –

She doesn't know how it happens.

One moment she is throwing the red flames around her and screaming, waiting for lightning, waiting for _something_, and the next Zuko is on the ground.

She didn't mean to.

The attendants take him away and her mother looks at her with hatred for the first time and her father stares at her in disgust and – and Azula runs away, flees – it's the first time she ever acts like a coward and she vows it's the last.

She didn't _mean_ to.

Mother doesn't try to love her again after that.

**...**

Azula practices in the dead of night, trying to make that blue fire burst from her fingertips, trying to move the way Zuko does. She tries and tries and tries and fails and fails and fails and Azula screams, beats her fists against the earth and screams and hates – hates everyone, hates herself.

Azula was born to be the best. She _knows_ it.

**...**

Azula has to acquire a different set of skills so she learns to lie. First she learns to twist tales and spin stories, and then she learns how to unravel a person, how to delve into their mind and pick out their secrets and lay them out for the world to see. She learns how to identify every little quirk in a man and what it means – the drawing together of the eyebrows, the twitch of the lip, the way the eyes move – they all mean something. They all tell her secrets and whisper in her ear so that no one can keep anything from her.

She learns how to rip a person apart from the inside. It's so easy to destroy someone without lifting a finger, so easy to set them off and make them so paranoid that they can't sleep at night – just with words.

Azula's good with words.

**...**

When she turns fourteen she runs away. She'll find the Avatar. Find the Avatar and bring him to her father and then – _then_ Daddy will love her.

Uncle Iroh doesn't go with her. She doesn't want any help. When he offers, heading her off in the dead of night because somehow he just _knows_ what she was doing, she spits that she doesn't need an old fat man to help her gain _her _favor – it belongs to her.

Iroh doesn't try to stop her. He never liked her, anyway.

He likes Zuko. Just like the rest of them. No one likes Azula. Azula has to fend for herself, just like always.

I am Azula.

I am alone.

**...**

She finds him in the ice and snow of the South Pole. Azula doesn't like the cold. It feels like it's sapping her life away slowly, ever so slowly, draining her of the fire that burns within. She's ready to get out of that horrible place, so she captures him quickly and easily. And when a young girl who thinks she's a Waterbender and a young boy who thinks he's a warrior take him from her, Azula is so angry – so, so angry – and she makes her first kill. Oddly, it's her ally, her own man that falls to her fury.

She should feel guilt. Azula's _supposed_ to feel guilt. Because he was innocent, wasn't the enemy, yet she cut him down as if he was and an act such as this merits some form of guilt, right?

I am Azula.

I am evil.

I do not care.

(I should care.)

**...**

Azula isn't honorable. She isn't noble. She just wants the Avatar and she just wants to go home a hero. She's well aware that her best trait is to lie – Azula's lied so often that she's a lie herself – and that's what she uses to win.

She joins the Avatar.

It's so easy to convince him that she wants to teach him firebending. It's so easy to convince them all that she hates the father that never loved her. Because she should. She _should._

They've yet to see the horrors of the world and yet to know anything but kindness and truth and they accept her amidst them just like that and Azula smiles.

The Avatar is nothing more than a child leading children. His two companions, the Waterbender and the boy, are just as naïve as he and just as welcoming. Though she isn't sure, but she thinks that the girl stays awake at night with an eye on her.

In time. In time.

**...**

Azula lies and lies and lies. Yes, I've left my old ways behind. Yes, I'm part of you now. No, I won't kill you all in your sleep. Yes, I'll teach you Firebending. No, I hate my father and wish to see him overthrown.

She lies and lies and lies until she can't remember the difference between truth and fiction.

The boy is funny. The Waterbender is kind. The Avatar is innocent.

She'll destroy them all.

She doesn't give them names, because she's afraid that if she does, it'll make them more like people and she won't be able to do it. It's easier to kill someone who's nameless.

**...**

Zuko finds her when they've stopped in a town. He pulls her aside and slams her into a wall and for a moment – she doesn't know why – Azula is reminded of when they were children, when Zuko would say, "'Zula, you're my sister and I love you."

And she'd say, "I know. I know."

She doesn't know.

It's the same thing every time he finds her. He's made it his own personal mission to bring her back, but he's always been sure to pull her aside when the Avatar and his friends are not around.

Thanks for not jeopardizing the mission, ZuZu.

Come home, he'll say. Come home, we can talk to Father and I'm sure he'll forgive you and please Azula you don't have to do this we can fix this come home please Father misses you Mother needs you come home come home come –

She's lied so often that she knows what one sounds like, but she'll still catch herself trying to believe him.

He's afraid that she's going to take some of his glory, Azula decides. He wants it all for himself, greedy, arrogant, horrible, I hate you I hate you I hate you so much –

Lie or truth? She doesn't know. She can't remember.

(But what's the difference, really?)

Why don't you capture the Avatar yourself? she asks one time. Because it'd be so easy for him, when he has all the resources and all the power and all the time. He'd just have to swoop in, catch them off guard, kill his friends, and take him, and all of Azula's future glory would be his.

And Zuko looks at her, really _looks_ at her, and sighs the sigh of a man twice his age. "Because," says her brother, "I don't want to."

Azula decides that she does hate him.

**...**

"Azula, I'm glad that you joined us," the warrior will say when Azula lights the fire.

"Azula, you aren't as bad as I initially thought," the Waterbender will say when Azula helps pack up the tent.

"Azula,your father was wrong about you. You're the best," the Avatar will say when Azula congratulates him on picking up a new Firebending technique.

It's sickening, their trust. It's so sickening it makes her want to puke.

She ignores the voices in her head.

(Evil evil evil.)

**...**

It's a month later that Azula realizes she's avoiding what must happen. Every night that an opportunity arises she finds something wrong with it – not near enough to a port, too close to a city, not the right conditions, I'll wait until they _really_ trust me and then the victory will be all the sweeter as they watch me betray them - one more night, one more night, one more night.

And she decides: this is it. This is the night. No more stalling.

She can't hope to take them all on by herself. Azula must be dishonorable in her fighting, and she's ok with this. She came to terms with it long ago.

In goes the knife. Katara is dead before she wakes. Snap goes the neck. Sokka does not know what happened.

And she realizes that it is only her second and third kill.

The Avatar is the only one that gets to know who brought upon his demise. He is the only one that gets to look at her and feel the betrayal and the anguish and the horror. He gets the honor of looking upon her face and seeing exactly who outsmarted him, exactly who destroyed him.

She takes him to the Fire Nation tied in chains and, in a last moment of hysterical insanity, she ties a pretty red bow around his middle before she gives him to her father. And oh, she thinks it's _so_ funny, it's _so_ hilarious, and she laughs and giggles and hoots as the Avatar cries and sobs and screams.

I am Azula.

I brought the Avatar to the Fire Nation.

I ended the war.

**...**

Zuko doesn't speak to her. She knows why – he's jealous that she got all the glory and the riches and the fame. She, Princess Azula, captured the Avatar all on her own! Without any help from others. She did it. All. By. Herself.

Iroh also avoids her, sticking closer to Zuko's side than she's ever seen. And when he does look at her, they are disapproving, disgusted glances – not at all what she expected.

Father loves her, just like she knew he would.

One day, she heads to her mother's room to collect well-deserved compliments and love, because, for some reason, she had yet to see Mother since she returned with the Avatar in tow. When she stops outside the room, hand hovering to knock, she stops. She hears weeping.

She doesn't understand.

(It's because you're evil you're evil evil _evil_)

She'll scrub her hands until they're so raw they're red and yet the blood doesn't come off. But it isn't guilt that keeps her up at night. It's not.

Every day she wakes up and every night she goes to sleep she imagines the blood spreading, spreading, until she is covered in it and she wails so loudly that attendants race to see what's wrong. It won't come off, she wails, get it off of me, get it off get it off it's _everywhere_.

(Evil evil evil)

Tainted. So tainted.

I am Azula.

I killed Sokka and Katara.

I ended the world.

**...**

"You're a monster," the Avatar – small, young, naïve, innocent – spits when she goes to visit him in his cell the morning of his execution. And she doesn't respond, because she's afraid that if she opens her mouth a hysterical laugh will be what comes out.

She watches her father tie him to a stake. She feels herself step forward when her father beckons her to do so, and she lights the fire at the bottom and looks on as the Avatar – as a child – as Aang – burns to death. The watching crowd cheers and screams like rabid animals as the smell of burnt flesh fills the air; Azula must hold in her vomit.

I'm above you all, Azula thinks.

I am Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation.

I am a hero.

I am nothing.


End file.
